Carla Zampatti usually shows a few days before fashion week, but this year, to celebrate 49 years in the game, she’s opening the official schedule with a Sunday night slot sponsored by Mercedes-Benz.

“I’m delighted,” she says. “It’s a great honour to be asked.”

She produced her first collection in 1965. “I was desperateto make a name for myself and it was hard; the industry was tiny. There was a new emphasis on young designers overseas, but they weren’t seen as serious contenders in Australia.

David Jones had its very elegant shows, but they were for established brands. I was just this girl with a funny name making miniskirts and jumpsuits.”

In 1968, the then-revolutionary fabric Crimplene gave her a helping hand.

“It was being made in Australia, and they asked me to design a collection. We held a show in [Sydney’s] Playhouse Theatre, while the Opera House was being built on top. It was magical, and gave me wonderful publicity.”

Ask Zampatti what drives her and she mentions the industry’s energy and reach: “Fashion is not an insider sport any more; it’s democratic. I love that anyone can join the conversation.”

Luke Sales, who with business partner Anna Plunkett designs Romance Was Born, is the creative whirlwind behind some of the most jaw-dropping fash week spectacles of recent years.

For their debut in 2009, the pair built an under-the-sea-themed wonderland at the Sydney Theatre Company.

Last year, their runway was a spaced-out tripscape (think neon magic mushrooms).

“We want our customers to [have] an emotional response to our garments. A show helps us make that connection,” says Sales. Music helps.

“Anna and I first connected through music. We saw a lot of gigs together and one of our first projects while we were still [studying fashion design] was dressing Karen O from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.”

What else? “Whatever you do to get your message out, there is no show, presentation or film or whatever, without an awesome team. We work a lot with stylist Caterina Scardino, [hair guy] Alan White and [make-up artist] Natasha Severino. You can’t do this stuff on your own.”

So, what can we expect from RWB this week? “Actually, it’s not runway, but an exhibition in collaboration with artist Rebecca Baumann. We always try to do something different.”

THE LEGEND: JENNY KEE

Fashion designer Jenny Kee is known for her big, bold prints.Source: Getty Images

“When I came back from London in the ’70s, there was no such thing as fashion week here,” says Jenny Kee, who staged her first show with creative partner Linda Jackson in 1974. It was in a Chinese restaurant.

“We had to wait for them to stop the food service before we could start! The press came in droves. There was huge excitement because Sydney had never done that; they’d just had straight little runway presentations, models walking down with numbered cards and a compere with a microphone. We wanted to do shows like [British designers] Ossie Clark and Zandra Rhodes, full of joy with models who were personalities.”

The following year, Kee and Jackson staged their now legendary Flamingo Follies show at Bondi Pavilion — “a fusion of art and fashion with painted sets and the beach as backdrop.”

When Kee joined the MBFWA circus two years ago, she worked with Romance Was Born, the designers of which (“mytwin souls”) she applauds for “working in another dimension”. Young talent, she says, “is the great joy of fashion week. To give young people who don’t have piles

“I never leave the house without dressing up,” says Lydia Schiavello, who’s having no trouble whatsoever being paparazzi-ready at all times now she’s a TV star.

As the “jet-owner and fashionista” on Real Housewives of Melbourne, she can expect some frow action this year, which seems only fitting — she’s a label junkie from way back.

“Clothes are important, they can take us to another dimension,” she says. “My mother and grandmother absolutely drummed that into me [as a child].” Schiavello is also an expert shopper. “I’m pretty good at it, I like to get my practice in. I just got back from a trip to Dubai with my husband [architect and property investor Andrew Norbury]. We landed at 9pm and I literally took my bags to the hotel and went to the mall until 2am.”

So are there any aspects of this newfound fame that freak her out?

“I’m grateful for it, and I’m enjoying it, but it has been very confronting,” she says. “There are no secrets.”

Then there’s the monster that is social media: welcome to #rhomelbourne.

“I’m new to Twitter and Instagram,” she confesses. “I’ve just been taught, and it’s so funny. I didn’t know what trolls were. It’s been an experience.”

That phone will be a front-row staple. What else?

“A great handbag, and I’m always in heels — as you get older, you shrink.”

Renya Xydis has been hairdressing since she was a kid, and joined the Aussie fashion week train in 1998. How did that very first event feel?

“You don’t understand! The glamour! It just felt like wow! Like I was in Paris.” Xydis admits she still gets the pre-show goose bumps, though she has seen it all since then, as part of Eugene Souleiman’s teams in Milan and Paris for the likes of Valentino, Prada and Louis Vuitton (Souleiman is serious stuff; he does Gaga’s hair).

“I’ve been around for years, but I still get that dizzy-heart feeling when I do a show,” says Xydis.

In February she was in New York creating side-swept, wet-look styles for Sass & Bide. “I met [Heidi Middleton and Sarah-Jane Clarke] on a Vogue shoot, and we’ve been working together ever since. They’re my minxes!”

So who benefits from the famed Xydis magic back home?

“I’ll do small shows for free now — it’s a love thing. I’m doing a bunch of young designers this time.”

The lucky ducks! How does she choose them? “For me the stylist is key. They are the ones who can make or break a show. So if Mark Vassallo or [Sunday Style contributing fashion editor] Meg Gray is on it, I’m there.”

As fashion editor of The Australian, it’s Traill-Nash’s job to “report on the trends, names to know and what we’re going to be wearing next season”.

The ebullient scarlet-tressed journo is a jazz singer in her downtime — not that there’s much of that come fashion week.

“I treat the run-up like preparing for battle,” she says. “The weekend before is about getting your outfits planned and snacks sorted — when I get home at 10pm, I want to find something to eat in my fridge! It will be 15-hour days for me.”

That doesn’t include schmoozing after-hours. “I don’t do parties during fashion week, I’m very strict about that because otherwise I get too exhausted.”

Traill-Nash says she gets her kicks on the job anyway: “There’s such a buzz.”

Why is the event a big deal for her readers? “Fashion is an important part of the cultural landscape,” she says. “Plus, it has an important archival place; it’s a snapshot of the times, so we can look back and see what we were wearing in a particular year, and we get to see the story evolve.”

THE MODEL TURNED BLOGGER: TANJA GACIC

Fashionista Tanja Gacic.Source: News Limited

“Oh my god, sitting front row at a show is so much better than walking in it!” grins model turned blogger Tanja Gacic, aka Tanja G.

“Getting up at 4am to get your hair and make-up done, sitting backstage for six hours, it’s pretty intense. Whereas taking your seat, seeing this amazing spectacle with a glass of Champagne … which would you choose?”

She’s teasing; her modelling career opened doors across the world, and now, thanks to her blog myempiricallife.com, she’s a stylist as well as a fabulous clotheshorse. “At 16, I modelled in the very first Australian fashion week for designers like Morrissey. And, seriously, I was more nervous then than at London or NY fashion week later on. ”What does she look out for now she’s crossed the divide? “I do notice things other people don’t because they haven’t modelled — like, OK she’s holding her hand like that because her skirt’s falling, or she’s really having trouble in those heels, ha ha! Only joking, I’m all about the clothes.”

Her picks? “Toni Maticevski, Dion Lee, and I loved Ellery last year.”

THE BLOGGER: MARGARET ZHANG

A selfie from Margaret Zhang’s Instagram. She has 148,000 followers.Source: Instagram

“My dad still thinks mI run an online store,” laughs Margaret Zhang, who is that

most modern of constructs: a slashie — or, as she puts it, “a mixed bag! A lot of people in my life don’t fully get what I do, and also I am still at uni. I have a website called Shine By Three. I began as a blogger, but I see myself as a writer, stylist, photographer, consultant and sometime model.”

Which balls is she juggling this week? “I’m reporting for Swarovski, shooting a range of content for its website, from reporting on shows and interviewing designers to shooting product.

More importantly, what will Zhang be wearing? “I was in Europe for the A/W ’14 collections and I became obsessed with Mary Katrantzou. Here, there are so many local designers I love — Michael Lo Sordo, for example. Whenever I wear an Australian label overseas, people are like, ‘What is that? It’s amazing.’ I’m noticing more and more interest from international press and buyers. Australian fashion is way cool, basically.”

After years of directing runway make-up for the likes of Josh Goot and Manning Cartell (and building a star client list including Lara Bingle, on whose reality-TV show he was a regular), May set up maxmade.com. au in 2012.

“Think of it like an online magazine built around sharing knowledge. I don’t talk about any product that’s not in my kit.”

While we’re on the A-list subject, May’s first fashion week memory involves Naomi Campbell. “I remember her being such a diva, refusing to come out of her tent between events — I loved the drama!”

What does he dig about the event now? “Small is beautiful! Let’s be honest, we don’t compete scale-wise with the Chanels of this world, but our designers are doing their own thing and doing it well. I think there’s a definable Australian style and approach (we’re known as some of the hardest workers in the business) and we have amazing models. I’m overseas a lot, and people always ask about our girls.”

THE STYLIST: KELLY HUME

Stylist Kelly Hume at a fashion event.Source: News Limited

As if her role as Sunday Style fashion director isn’t enough for Kelly Hume, she moonlights as the stylist on some of fashion week’s coolest shows. This year, it’s old fave Bec & Bridge and newcomer MacGraw, while she recently styled Rebecca Vallance’s New York fashion week debut. “I look for designers who have a strong sense of who their customer is,” says Hume. “It’s all about brand identity.” But what we really want to know is: just how glamorous is it, really? Is it all fabulous shoes and grabbing dinner in three-hatted restaurants with supermodels? “Well … I generally don’t have time to sit down to eat during fashion week, so I carry around a boiled egg and a bag of tamari almonds in my handbag,” she says. “And last season I was backstage at Bec & Bridge madly getting everything ready when the heel snapped on my Alaïa ankle boots. I had no car with me and no back-up shoes, so one of my incredible assistants begged the local cobbler to repair it on the spot. I was only barefoot for about half an hour.”

He’s not the sort of photographer you find in the pit snapping models at the end of the runway, but Nick Leary still enjoys fashion week.

“Fashion photography is about capturing a mood that feels right for the times, and shows really help with that. They offer a glimpse into what we can expect to see, and how designers are pushing fashion forward,” he says.

Leary used to be a model himself:

“It was in New York in the ’90s, but it feels like a different life — I can barely remember,” he insists, though he admits he walked for Versace in Milan.

These days Leary is on the other side of the lens, shooting for Vogue, GQ and Sunday Style, often in exotic locations. So how does Australia fit in with all his jetsetting?

“Recently, I’ve been focusing on my art photography through my Celebrate Australia initiative — it’s about paying homage to the creative life of this country. I’m a big advocate of homegrown

fashion talent.”

Mercedez-Benz Fashion Week Australia runs from April 6 to 10 at Carriageworks Sydney.

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